THE UNIVERSITY OF MICHIGAN DEARBORN CHILD DEVELOPMENT CENTER HISTORY 1971 to By Rosalyn Saltz and Mary Trepanier Street

THE UNIVERSITY OF MICHIGAN DEARBORN CHILD DEVELOPMENT CENTER HISTORY 1971 to 2009 By Rosalyn Saltz and Mary Trepanier –Street While all of us at the University of Michigan-Dearborn celebrate our 50th anniversary, the UMDearborn Child Development Center (CDC) will be observing its 34th year of operation as a part of the School of Education, and its 38th year as a campus child care facility. Its director is a faculty member of the School of Education (SOE), and its teachers and staff are all responsible to the director and the dean of the SOE. The Center includes a preschool for children aged one to five years, as well as a kindergarten. Until 2008, the Center was located in the three Henry Ford Estate cottages, with two outdoor playgrounds, and a separate kindergarten module. In late 2008, it was relocated to a much larger, contemporary space in the Rotunda Building, owned by Oakwood Hospital (more about this move later), and has been renamed “Early Childhood Education Center (ECEC).” During its 38 years, the Center has been a valuable resource for teacher training, research and community outreach, as well as a campus and community education and child care facility. The CDC from 1971 to 1995 by Professor Rosalyn Saltz, Director The Center’s unofficial beginning was in early 1971, shortly after I joined the UM-Dearborn as a fledgling Assistant Professor. At that time, seven returning student mothers from various UMDearborn departments secured my assistance in a then revolutionary effort to convince the campus administration to provide space for a child care facility on our campus. My own interest in this was both social and professional. The 1970’s saw a surge in the number of young mothers who wished to pursue a college education. For many of these women, fulfilling this ambition at UM-Dearborn would have been almost impossible if there were not the opportunity for convenient, quality child care while they were attending classes. In addition to providing child care for students pursuing an education, I saw a child care center on our campus as an opportunity to plant the seeds of a future child study laboratory and teacher training facility. The founding parents shared this vision. At that time, I knew of only one other child care facility on a Michigan campus which aimed to fill both these functions in a single facility. In 1971 the very idea of young children inserted into the midst of the serious educational environment of UM-Dearborn’s campus was not looked upon kindly by at least some of our administrators and faculty. Our small lobbying group assumed that space for such a venture would be very difficult if not impossible for us to secure. We were mistaken. The dean (who at that time served as the administrative head of the campus) met with our group around his conference table. One of the seven women came in holding her baby, settled herself in her chair, whispered to her baby and then held her baby to her breast. The dean looked startled and

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uncomfortable, and quickly granted us a small space, first, at the back of the Estate’s kitchen. This space was soon deemed unsuitable, and the project was moved to one of the three Henry Ford Estate cottages, all of which had been previously utilized as faculty family residences and were made available for other campus programs as the faculty moved to other quarters. The parents and volunteers painted, furnished and otherwise readied this new space so that it could be utilized as a venue for a child care center. Several years later, as its enrollment grew, thenProvost Eugene Arden approved the use of the second of the three cottages to augment the Center’s physical facilities. (Incidentally, the latter cottage was made available when Professor Elton Higgs and his family moved out. Professor Higgs wondered if he should have considered himself evicted!) By 1975, the Child Development Center was extensively utilized by students in courses offered by the SOE as well as those in psychology and other disciplines. It was already hosting visitors from other campuses, and others who were interested in our small but novel child care/early education program and its philosophy and methods. After a favorable campus review by a committee appointed by Chancellor Goodall, the Center was designated in 1975 as an official UM-Dearborn campus program and became an auxiliary unit of the School of Education. It was responsible to its first director (myself) and to the SOE and its dean, Richard Morshead. Until this new status for the CDC, it was largely funded by the fees it charged for child care, with additional assistance provided by UM-Dearborn in the form of free facilities and a very small general fund allocation for (as stated in Chancellor Goodall’s final directive) “laboratory services rendered.” After 1975, the campus administration’s support for CDC operations gradually increased. The parents and staff celebrated when the campus took on the responsibility for maintenance of the two cottages, including the cleaning of its inside spaces. However, in 1981 the Center’s UM-Dearborn presence was placed in serious jeopardy by the State Auditor in his review of campus finances. At that time, as then Chancellor Jenkins reported, the Board of Regents held that “general funds should never be used to support a child care center.” The Auditor found that the basis for any general fund support of the CDC had never been established. Note that, in his view, “general fund support” included even the Center’s physical facilities and their maintenance. Withdrawing such support eliminated any possibility of even a self-supporting service-oriented child care center on campus. In response, Chancellor Jenkins appointed a review committee, chaired by Professor Michael Schneider. The final 1982 report of the committee included the following statements: “The Center is crucial to the quality of the Division of Education’s program in early childhood, psychology and education, that it is a resource of significant academic value to the Division and to the campus for teaching and research wherever early childhood is relevant.” The Schneider campus committee’s review and report saved the life of the Child Development Center on the UM-Dearborn campus.

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By 1991, the second and third cottage had been added to the CDC, and office and seminar space were provided nearby. In that year, a kindergarten was also added, housed in a module. By the early 1990’s, an average of 140 children were enrolled in the three cottages and the kindergarten. The Center’s unusual dual role as both a service and academic resource for the campus has continued. Its quality as a child care program was validated when, in 1990, the CDC was among the first 34 of the 3,502 child centers in Michigan to earn a prestigious national accreditation by meeting the stringent standards of the then newly established National Academy of Early Childhood Centers. (This accreditation has been periodically renewed up until the present). As an academic program, its continuing contribution to the campus academic program was also evident. More than 90 practicum students who were enrolled in SOE courses earned course credits at the Center each term. The CDC became the primary teacher training facility for SOE undergraduate and graduate early childhood education students. Students from other UMDearborn courses utilized the Center for assignments such as child observation and study. Research focusing on child education or child development was undertaken by faculty members in education and other disciplines. The Center’s progressive education strategies and use of technology in its classrooms for young children attracted many professionals and academics from Michigan and beyond, many of whom visited the Center to observe its educational program. The CDC’s professional and academic personnel attended and participated regularly in many professional workshops and conferences, and, sometimes with other campus programs, sponsored a number of these on campus. The Center’s academic value and its contribution to the campus and its SOE were formally recognized in the 1992 report of the NCAA, after its comprehensive review of the SOE and its programs. The report was very positive in regard to the SOE as a whole, and, in particular it designated the CDC’s contribution to the SOE programs and operations as a particular strength. The Center’s educational program has been further enhanced by incorporating ideas from the educational philosophy and strategies of the early education schools in Reggio Emilia, Italy. The Reggio public preschools had attracted international attention and were designated as the “best in the world” in an article in NEWSWEEK magazine. In 1991, I visited these centers, and found many things in their approach that, when adapted to our culture, promised to enrich our program as well as early childhood practice in general. This “Reggio” influence continues to be prominent in the early childhood education program at UM-Dearborn, as well as in a growing number of U.S early childhood education programs. The Center has been active in modeling and disseminating aspects of this approach and many have come to observe some of these ideas in action. Despite the charm of the three cottages as a site for the education of young children, over the years it became evident that the Center’s facilities were becoming increasingly inadequate for its missions. Enrollment of student, faculty and community children exceeded that which could be

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accommodated. Its waiting lists were never ending. Worse, the cottages were not really suited as early childhood classrooms which are also utilized for teacher training, for research activities and for a demonstration program which attracted numerous visitors. The aging cottages were not only cramped but also required constant disruptive and expensive maintenance and renovations. The necessity for more appropriate facilities became increasingly urgent. In 2009, this situation was finally remedied. My long-time collaborator in the Center’s operation and development, Professor Mary Trepanier-Street, became the CDC’s director in 1995. She will tell the Child Development Center’s story from that time up to the present. The CDC/ECEC from 1995 to 2009 by Professor Mary Trepanier-Street, Director In 1995 I became Director of the Child Development Center. During my tenure as Director a major theme has been maintenance, construction and moving. My very first week began with a threat that we might not be able to be open due to major reconstruction of the cottages. Because of lead paint, all of the walls had to be covered and new moldings had to be built to cover the “historic” moldings. It was the Friday before Labor Day and all of the bathrooms were not finished and the plumbing was disconnected. In a child care center that is a disaster! On my first day we might have been closed had I not contacted every administrator possible to help me get the bathrooms finished. The construction crew worked all Labor Day weekend and saved the day. About a year later we had another major maintenance problem. The basements were flooded and mold was found. The “Masters of Disaster” in their space suit type equipment sealed the entrance of each cottage and removed the mold. During the mold removal the building needed to be evacuated. To maintain programming, classrooms of children were moved from place to place as each cottage was cleaned. The kindergarten had to move to the University Center. It too had recently been evacuated because it needed renovation. The next construction was the kindergarten module. The child watched as the last remaining module on campus, the kindergarten module, was demolished. Construction of the new module took longer than expected. Consequently, the kindergarten was moved to the Administration Building. Smells of snack cooking and sounds of little children running down the hall were a very new experience for the Administration Building. Meanwhile, the promise of a new building was forever on the horizon. Perhaps the CDC would move to the Academic Services Building, perhaps to the CASL Annex, perhaps to the Fairlane Center, perhaps to a new building on campus. Plans were always changing.

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Finally, it was decided that the CDC would move to a new building, the Rotunda Building, owned by Oakwood Hospital. This move was perhaps the biggest challenge yet as the Director. Before moving, the lease needed to be signed and approved by the Regents, renovations needed to be completed, and approved by building inspectors, the fire marshal and state licensing granted. Delays in construction and the lease approval changed the move-in date multiple times. It was like a déjà vu of my first year. The Friday before Labor Day, the last day available, we received the last approval from the state licensing department and we opened the Center for business the Tuesday after Labor Day. With the move to the Rotunda building in September 2009, the CDC, now called the Early Childhood Education Center (ECEC), finally has a beautiful home. In this building the ECEC can thrive and expand. Within a few years, the ECEC will have eight classrooms and serve more than 300 children and families. The number of education students prepared as teachers at the ECEC will increase significantly Sharing the building with Oakwood Hospital’s Center for Exceptional Families (CEF) permits new opportunities for collaboration. The collaboration offers many exciting opportunities for children, families, university students and ECEC/CEF staff and faculty. Children with and without disabilities can be educated together and come to appreciate each other’s strengths and potentials. Families can become aware of their similarities and differences and find support in their parenting of young children with/without disabilities. University students can learn about the development of children with/without disabilities and participate in the inclusive education site. Medical and education staff and faculty can expand their knowledge about children and innovative practices by sharing expertise across disciplines and by conducting collaborative research projects. This new chapter for the ECEC (CDC) in collaboration with the CEF is very exciting. There is the potential for making a very significant impact upon the lives of many young children and their families, upon the future generation of education and medical professionals, and upon the knowledge and practice base of both the early childhood and medical professions.

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